Transcript: QuickMail settings, episode 8: the Appearance tab

Times are positions in QuickMail-settings-08-appearance-v1.mp3; a demo's time is where its audio starts, after the chime.

Demo lines are the text the screen reader sent to its voice, from its own log. A following key can cut an utterance short, so a line here may be longer than what is heard.

Welcome (0:00)

Michael: Welcome back to our tour of QuickMail's settings. I'm Michael.

Maya: And I'm Maya. This is episode eight, the last in the series: the Appearance tab. This one is about how QuickMail looks, so it's for anyone who uses the screen, all of it or some of it, and for anyone who sets QuickMail up for someone else.

Michael: None of these settings change what a screen reader says. NVDA reads QuickMail the same whichever theme or font you choose. So in our demo, you'll hear the choices, but not the difference they make on screen. We'll describe that.

Maya: As always, we're AI voices, the demo is a real recording of QuickMail with NVDA on an offline test machine, a script pressed the keys, and we added clicks, chimes and shorter pauses afterwards.

Michael: Here's the tab, opening each list as we go.

[Demo, 0:51, logged] Appearance tab selected 6 of 6 Theme settings grouping Theme: combo box System collapsed M expanded System 1 of 6 Parchment not selected 2 of 6 Parchment Dark not selected 3 of 6 Ember not selected 4 of 6 Fjord not selected 5 of 6 Heather not selected 6 of 6 Theme: combo box System collapsed M Text settings grouping Font: combo box (Theme default) collapsed F expanded (Theme default) 1 of 86 Arial not selected 2 of 86 Bahnschrift not selected 3 of 86 Calibri not selected 4 of 86 Font: combo box (Theme default) collapsed F Text size: combo box 100% collapsed Z Message list density grouping Comfortable radio button checked Compact radio button checked Comfortable radio button checked Vision settings grouping Always underline links check box not checked U Thicker keyboard focus indicators check box not checked D Apply theme colors to message content check box not checked O Messages data grid unread. Dana Okafor. Project Falcon kickoff. Welcome to the Project Falcon team.. 1:36P. Work -- Inbox. data item selected 1 of 12

Maya: Four groups: Theme settings, Text settings, Message list density, and Vision settings. Let's go through them.

Themes (2:18)

Michael: Theme is a combo box, System by default. Alt down arrow opened it, and NVDA read the six built-in themes: System, Parchment, Parchment Dark, Ember, Fjord, and Heather. We pressed Escape to leave it as it was.

Maya: System follows Windows. If Windows is set to light, QuickMail is light, and if Windows is dark, QuickMail is dark. The others are QuickMail's own color schemes, light and dark.

Michael: There's more to themes than this list. The Theme Manager, in the command palette as Manage Themes, lets you manage themes, share them, and import ones other people have made. And every theme is also a command in the palette, named Theme, then the theme's name. That means you can give a theme its own key on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab from episode five, and switch with one keystroke. There are also Next Theme and Previous Theme commands.

Maya: And if you use Windows High Contrast, Windows supplies the colors while it's on. A note appears at the top of this tab to say so. Your theme choice is kept, and it comes back when High Contrast is turned off.

Font and text size (3:27)

Michael: In Text settings, Font is set to Theme default, which uses the font the theme was designed with. Opening the list showed eighty-six choices: Theme default, then every font installed on the computer, starting with Arial, Bahnschrift, and Calibri.

Maya: Text size is a hundred percent by default. You can choose a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty-five, a hundred and fifty, a hundred and seventy-five, or two hundred percent. It makes QuickMail's text bigger.

Message list density (3:58)

Michael: Message list density is a pair of radio buttons. Comfortable is the default, and the window recommends it. It puts more space around each message in the list, which is easier to scan by eye. Compact packs the rows tighter, so more messages fit on the screen at once.

Maya: NVDA said Comfortable, then Compact as we arrowed down, and Comfortable again as we came back up. It's only spacing. A screen reader user gets exactly the same list either way. You can also change it from the View menu.

Vision settings (4:32)

Michael: And the last group, Vision settings, three checkboxes, all off by default.

Maya: Always underline links. Links are underlined everywhere, instead of being told apart by color alone. That helps if you have trouble seeing colors.

Michael: Thicker keyboard focus indicators. The outline that shows which control has keyboard focus is drawn thicker, so it's easier to follow where you are as you tab around.

Maya: And Apply theme colors to message content. Normally a message shows the colors and fonts its sender chose, which can mean pale grey text on white, or tiny type. Turn this on, and QuickMail shows every message in your theme's colors and fonts instead. Turn it on when messages arrive hard to read.

That's every setting (5:18)

Michael: And that's it. Eight episodes, six tabs, and every setting in QuickMail's Settings window: what it starts as, what you can change it to, and what happens when you do.

Maya: Along the way we found some rough edges and wrote them up for the developer: spoken names that don't match the screen, access keys used more than once, a focus problem after closing a tab, and a few others. Some of them may well be fixed by the time you hear this.

Michael: If you remember just one thing from this series, make it control comma. The next time QuickMail does something you'd rather it didn't, open Settings before you decide you're stuck with it.

Maya: And if there's no setting for it, that's when you file the bug. QuickMail is free, at github dot com slash kelly l ford slash QuickMail, and the user guide is under Help, or press F1. Thanks for listening to the series. I'm Maya.

Michael: And I'm Michael. See you next time.